Fugitive
by Raen-Allassea
Summary: A brief Fanfiction from Luke's POV using some of my guesses as to why he wasn't in the trailer for Force Awakens. I haven't read the books so a lot of this is based on some of the stuff I've been seeing about the upcoming movie in online articles and forums.


Foreword: A brief piece of fanfiction on why Luke isn't in the trailers (well, except for that mysteriously cloaked figure with R2D2 in what could be Dagobah). As usual, I don't own any of these characters, just a fun little piece based on some of the stuff I had been learning about the new Star Wars canon, as well as some ideas picked up on from around the internet. Have fun.

A Life Observed

 _Dagobah and Tatooine. This is where everything always led back to wasn't it?_

 _Ben exiled himself to Tatooine to watch over me and Master Yoda came back to Dagobah to study the Force and wait._

 _Even now I can feel the immensity of the Living Force running through my veins. It's filling every fiber of my being with its light and darkness._

 _Nothing has been the same since I came to learn of it. I was the son of the only person in the known galaxy to be born from it. The savior of prophesy who turned into the villain and back._

 _He's been here with me. Ben and Yoda too. Even in the moments I have never felt so completely alone, they've been here guiding me._

 _But we have never learned how to completely undue the wrongs inflicted on the worlds._

I'm shaken out of my reverie by R2's incessant beeping. He's been telling me for rotations that I need to get my hand worked on. It's been a while since I replaced some of the gears and he's afraid I'll lose all its function. I gently pat him on his side and say, "It's ok buddy, they'll last a little longer."

More beeping.

I shake my head fondly at him. Age hasn't caught up with him like it has with me. Again, I find myself wondering what will happen to R2's spirit when he finally no longer functions himself, whether through age or degeneration of programming. I'd like to think that the energy flowing through his circuits is a life energy also compatible with the force. A soul as well.

R2 of course doesn't care. Not because his AI programming bans it, but because he's always been concerned for others. His mission has been to protect, it's written throughout every coding of every moment of his lifespan watching over my family.

My old bones are aching from the damp and cold atmosphere of this swamp planet, reminding me again that I how much I have aged. I shudder as the force within me rolls like a wave, momentarily distracting me. I gaze around knowing full well I am safe, at least for the moment, near Yoda's old sanctuary.

There have been similar reverberations in the force lately. I feel danger, not just for me, but for Leia, Han, and Chewie. I haven't talked to them in years. I am too afraid of what might happen to them if I make any contact. After Endor, we were all so happy. None of us would have expected the continued war and power struggles. We were no politicians or strategists, we naively thought to take down the top two power players would make the empire powerless. Yet instead of a new republic, endless power plays had ensued, each filling in the vacuum another player left after their demise.

This wasn't the worst of it, of late, I have felt as if I'm a complete failure. I didn't destroy the Emperor, my father did. I didn't save my father, the one man who could have made the empire bow to his whims. Instead the empire struggled on and the Galaxy continued its madness. Wars, crime syndicates, and the bounty on my head. Apparently both the failing empire and Jabba's family saw an opportunity to put a price on my head.

I was one of the most hunted fugitives in a generation. All that saved me, more than once, was the force. To save Han and Leia, I had to disappear. Most knew we were friends, few knew we were family and we intended to keep it that way.

I reached out and nudged R2 playfully and started walking forward to my hut. There was no reason to abandon R2, he would never give me up willingly. A step forward and another wave hit me. Whatever Kylo and the Knights were up to, it was big.

I could feel the unbalance of the force and I was powerless to stop it. It concerned my father as well. The council, as I called those Jedi who guided me from The Force, were all worried. They had died but could still appear to the force sensitive. In the world of the living, there were only a handful of Jedi trainees. They had all been handpicked by Ahsoka and even they had to operate under the radar. I was the leader of an almost extinct sect.

Gone were the days of the peacekeepers wielding a sword of light by which the Galaxy would be free. So to were the days when Consulars could study the Force in peace from the confines of the temple. The new Jedi were now pulling strings behind the scenes, occasionally with blasters at their sides. Lightsabers were too obvious. The empire had still hunted any trace and the Knights of Ren sought force sensitive as well, though I do not know their intent. The few students who had been caught weren't killed, that much I could sense.

Ahsoka was a rarity herself, it had been a pleasure meeting one of my father's former students. She had only survived Order 66 because she left the Jedi. Then, she had only survived the Empire because of my father's latent love for her. It was a testament to my father's suppressed affiliation for the light and the cunning instilled with his teaching that she had escaped. My father of course is still alive, but distant. Living in the force is another realm of being and the dead are still dead in our realm.

So, it was through Ahsoka that I felt I was finally meeting my father, the Anakin who would have raised me if only events had transpired differently. She was getting older and I hoped she'd be around for a while more. I'm not sure I could be responsible for all the new Jedi on my own. There is some comfort in knowing her species ages a little slower than my own.

It was together we trained the new younglings, but only a handful. We couldn't create a huge order without attracting unnecessary attention. Only the most promising and trustworthy were chosen and we trusted the force to reveal these to us.

I had walked through the door to my cavern. There was some soup I had made the night before using the last of my rations. I gave a slight sigh. It was always dangerous being on the move but a supply run to Tatooine was in order. It was one of the few places I could blend in easily and pass unnoticed. It would also be a good time to get more gears for my hand.

I put the soup on the fire and stirred. Still lost in thought.

Not all of the post empire years had been bad. There were a few years of peace when the ruined empire realized I was no longer a chief concern. But as the Galaxy finally had a break from war. The Knights of Ren appeared. They were obsessed with the relics of the past. Claiming both the Jedi temple and any force related artifact. They seemed to be fashioning a new order that was neither Sith nor Jedi. They claimed they had the truth and thereby the right to rule.

And the force was welcoming them.

I gave a brief sigh over the fire. I didn't know what I was fighting for any more. The dark side was still there, still coaxing users to join it. I knew in my heart this wasn't the answer. Yet it seemed as if the light side was not the right answer either. At least not the way it had been viewed in the past.

What if balancing the force meant something that none of us had ever expected?

Ahsoka had said, multiple times, she had always felt like Anakin had been different than any other Jedi. She thought he was using the force in a way none had since before the founding of the Jedi order. What if she was right? The problem was, even my father couldn't explain it, because he barely understood it himself. All he could tell me was that he simply did what his instincts told him. Even his transition from life to the force had been instinctually. He hadn't trained for it as Ben, Yoda, and Qui-Gon had.

I sensed my father had set the gears into motion and for the last few rotations I felt as if it was up to me to finish the job.

But how?

Qui-Gon was still there as well when he was needed. His answers were reassuring and frustrating, " _Patience you will know when the time comes."_ Patience was not one of my virtues.

Suddenly, a disturbance in the Force like a thousand suns came crashing through me. I barely heard R2's frantic beeps that the perimeter had been breached. I immediately willed my lightsaber to fly to my hands and headed for the door.

I didn't have to look at my security screen to know who it was. The force sensitive Kylo Ren had finally found me. But how? No one knew of this place except those closest to me.

I stepped outside with my lightsaber in my hands. I saw the band of black cloaked allies he had brought with him and raised my lightsaber – modeled after both Ben's and Qui-Gon's - to my side. Suddenly a calm surrounded me and I could hear my father's voice in the back of my mind telling me to drop the saber. It was time to stop running.

I slowly let go of the button, allowing the blaze of green light to vanish.

Kylo's masked faced seemed to bare on my soul as if he was deciding what to do. He seemed to have expected more of a fight.

I was the first to speak, "Knight of Ren, why are you here to harass an old man?"

His voice was raspy as if he was trying to imitate his model, Vader, in any way possible.

"Skywalker, you will come with me. We have much to discuss," He raised his crude lightsaber menancingly.

I used the force to lock my door and send a message through the computers for R2. Staring back at Kylo, trying not to show any sort of fear and to trust in the power I felt coursing through my body, I willed myself to put my lightsaber back on my belt.

"No need for violence. I will come. All I would like is a hot meal and a warm bed in return."

Kylo Ren stood quiet for a moment, "I expected more fight from the son of Lord Vader." He bowed his head slightly, "You will receive both." He waved a hand and two men came forward and grabbed my arms. I was already too far down this road to resist. I let them, though I knew I could destroy them in the time it took me to blink, I had to trust the Force in this. I can't deny the temptation to use force lightning was not strong.

Yet, as they were leading me to their transport I felt peace. This was the right move though I could not see how. I only hoped R2 would raise the alarm and get in touch with Leia and Han, not unlike Leia's plea all those years before, this time Leia, and her children, were Luke's only hope.


End file.
